All in his head
by xWouLDYouKiNDLYx
Summary: What if it was all just a dream? No... that's not the right word. More like nightmare. A nightmare that Edward Richtofen must live everyday of his life when he's continuously dragged back and forth between reality and fantasy. Trapped within a mental asylum, labeled schizophrenic, this is his story.


The noise, he lived for it. The beautifully _awful _noise when his knife met the skin of the man laying on the table in front of him, how the blood gushed out, how the man's back arched as he let out a yelp. It was useless, really, he was strapped down to the table. Still, the man fought for his life. And all the doctor did was smile. He loved how they wriggled and squirmed in a pathetic attempt to get free. None ever did. If you came into his office and felt yourself strapped down to this table, being forced to stare up at the harsh lamp overhead as you heard the man mumble about his surgical tools as he picked one up and wiped it on his shirt to get rid of the blood from the man before, it was imminent that you would never see anything outside these walls again. Still, this one fought and screamed and rattled at the bonds holding him down. He cursed at the doctor, calling him ten different obscenities in one sentence, which the man ignored as he looked over the tools set before him, wondering which would assist in hacking this man to pieces today. Smiling, he picked an old favorite, a bowie knife caked in dried blood and other vile things from a surgery performed not two days before, and came over to the man strapped down in a sort of condescending way. He raised his arm, the one which held the knife firmly, and brought it down hard upon the hostage's body…

"_How is he?" one man asked. He was dressed in white and pushed his glasses up his nose as he peered down at the papers attached to the clipboard he was holding. _

"_No signs of improvement," the woman standing beside him said as she knocked on the door to a room that read DANGEROUS PATIENT, PROCEED WITH CAUTION, and waited for an answer. When she heard nothing she knocked again, louder this time, and said loudly, "Edward, it's us. We're coming in now." _

_The man inside hadn't moved from where they left him. Still laying on his bed, arms trapped within the confinements of a straight jacket, staring absently at the ceiling. He paid them no mind when they came over to ask him questions, "how are you feeling today?" "wouldn't you like to join the others, you've been a good boy this week" "Edward, we need you to answer us. Do you see them? What are they saying right now?" But, as always, he never said a word back. It was never clear whether he was just really good at tuning others out, _the **real** people, _or if he was so far along that he no longer could tell the difference. Occasionally they could get him to speak, however, but those times have become so uncommon and spread apart it was like a miracle he came back to reality at all. _

The screams had finally calmed down. Before him, instead of a human being, was a chunk of bloody, misshapen flesh whose chest rose and fell very slowly, whose eyes were glossy and unfocused, whose voice could no longer say a word. The doctor was pleased, he had a fresh sack of organs that he could play with later as long as he could put them in containers that would keep them that way for awhile. He tied a knot in the bag holding them and slung it over his shoulder as if he was Santa Claus, smiling like the Grinch, and told the patient very sweetly that he would be back later for more.

"_Edward," the nurse said as she filled a little paper cup with water from the tap and took out some pills from a bottle, "you need to takes these today. And I better not find any under your tongue or in the trash can later." She walked over to the man who was sitting up now and set the medicine on the table beside him, "Can I trust you to do this for me?"_

_The man only stared at her, hard. When she repeated herself more firmly, he gave her a stiff nod and picked up the cup and the pills, and without taking his eyes off of her, swallowed them. She took hold of his chin and forced her bony fingers in his mouth, poking around to make sure they actually went down. When she was satisfied she stepped away to take off the rubber gloves and dispose of them properly, as the man watched. Although she wouldn't admit it out loud, she found him one of the more disturbing patients whom he did have an episode she would be at a loss of what to do. But that was why they kept him up here in the padded rooms so he couldn't bang his head against the wall, wearing a straightjacket at most times unless there was a nurse who could watch him. Yes, she felt safe. Even if it was a false sense of security, it was something at least._

_When she was at the door, she turned to him and said, "I will see you later when it's dinner time. You're going to come eat with the rest of us so you can get a little more interaction with real people, alright?" And he nodded. Never spoke, just nodded obediently. _

_The door closed. Immediately, he felt a wave of panic wash over him. Poison poison poison poison poison… What would these horrid things to do him this time? Sometimes they made him feel like he wasn't there at all, fading into the quietness of nonexistence, sometimes he felt as though he could fall asleep forever, or like he wouldn't be able to stop pacing back and forth if he tried. Poison poison poison… and suddenly he felt the welcomed feeling in the pit of his stomach… he stooped over when he made his way to the corner and retched until he saw the little undigested pills before him, and smiled. Happily he kicked them into the corner, out of sight along with the others, and sat to wait for dinner._

What fit where? Edward thought a moment before placing a spleen alongside the intestines, like it was some sort of big, innocent game. Then he chose a pair of eyes, bright and blue, from a deceased soldier in the army, and put them where he thought they should go, up top along with the brain he salvaged from the same man. The poor soldier went and got a bullet through his heart, died immediately, lucky for him, and was left laying there amongst the rest of the fallen to be picked at and taken from. It didn't matter to Edward if the patient was alive or if he was dead, it was all the same, really. Although, in all honesty, he found the patients that were still breathing and capable of crying out in pain as he cut through them more enjoyable to 'help'. He called it help, but he was insane. Any man who didn't fall into the darkness as he had would call it murder.

Next came the lungs. These were black and slimy from a man who had been smoking his entire life, but a perfect fit for this monstrous creation. Besides, who really cared if this beast would be able to breathe right anyway? It would be a miracle if he could get it to come to life in the first place, let alone _stay_ alive. He turned away from the table and opened a few drawers, searching through the hopeless mess he had created in search of a needle and thread. Something had to hold this decaying mess together.

_The lunch room was huge. There were two long tables in the middle, surrounded by men and women who sat in the chairs picking absently at the food set before them. Instantly, Edward decided he hated this place. It was much too noisy for his liking, his fellow patients did nothing but go on and on about things no one cared to know about such as how much they hated their families for not visiting, how little food they ate, how they didn't sleep last night. He prefered the quiet (or just about as quiet as someone with schizophrenia could get) when he could think about his plans for the future, assuming they'd ever let him go. He joined a few patients who made it down late in line for their dinners, refusing to make eye contact with any of them, not even the servers who smiled politely as they plopped a mountain of mashed potatoes on his plate and expected a thank you in return. He did not thank them. He did not want to thank anybody. They hadn't done anything except make the food that smelled positively _wretched _that he had no intention of eating in the first place. Poison… it's poison… they want to kill you… He sat away from the others as much as he could, leaning over his food with his eyes focused on the plastic fork in his hand, not speaking. _

"_Edward, Edward."_

_He looked up and towards the door, where there stood a young girl with her hair pulled back into a ponytail. She smiled and waved to him. _

"_Come and play with me!"_

_They told him she wasn't real. She was a figment of his imagination, or in technical terms, a hallucination. And she is supposed to go away when he takes his medicine, something had he had successfully avoided for a week now. There, in the corner where the carpet has come up just slightly, sat all the pills they told him would make him better. _

_Better? BETTER? But he wasn't sick. And she was real, she's been with him since the beginning, since his parents had sent him away some twelve odd years ago. He stood slowly, pushing the tray away, not hearing when it fell off the table and clattered to the floor. The little girl smiled at the acknowledgement and opened her arms, and happily he obliged, he hugged her little body close to his. _

_That's when two of the men who stood there and watched the mentally ill with scowls on their faces as they ate came and grabbed Edward by the arms. For the first time in a long time, Edward made noise: he screamed, fighting against them, desperate now to get away to somewhere where he and the little girl could be safe and free. The girl stood there, a look of horror frozen on her face in a silent scream as she watched him get dragged away, out the double doors, down the hall, into his room again. Once again, he was confined within the straightjacket, the doctors around his bed shaking their heads and muttering, "I knew something like this was going to happen." Still, he fought hard, trying to get up as one of the bigger security men pressed his hands into Edward's shoulders to keep him on the bed. He felt a prick in his side, and turned his head to the door where the girl stood. Before the blackness consumed him again, he told her, "I'll be back soon."_

Finally, it was finished. It had taken hours of meticulous sewing, but everything had found its place nicely and neatly, arranged as accurately as possible so it truly resembled a human being. A decaying, skinless human being, but one nonetheless. Now, when subjects to rip apart were scarce he could use this. It was perfect… except for the fact that it would never scream, or wriggle, or bleed. But that was a minor technicality that would be easily resolved as soon as he found more 115. Problem was, the damn little girl that hid in the ceiling and sent swarms of reanimated corpses after him was hoarding it all. And to make it just that more inconvenient, they also hated each other. So that was out of the question.

He secured the man's arms and legs to the table, telling him to stay there, he'll be back later so they can play doctor. Locking the door behind him, he looked up and down the deserted hallway for any sign of life. There was nothing. Not even a moan in the distance from a corpse that got separated from the bigger group, not a gunshot, not a peep. It was almost frightening how dead this place felt. He smiled. Good. Good that no one is around. Maybe they've all died and lent their bodies to him. For science! No, no more for his own pleasure. He could stab someone hundreds of time without a word of how much they utterly _despised _him.

"_Hello." was the first thing Edward heard when he woke again. He was in a room he didn't recognize, with people who stood there shaking their heads, mumbling, writing on clipboards as they stared at him. "I heard you haven't been taking your medicine."_

_He tried to sit up, but he had been restrained again. Again. For the seventh time in a month. _

"_Well, have you?" There was a woman standing over him, an authoritative looking woman who had a kind face and didn't speak harshly like some of the other doctors he had met. Edward shook his head slowly. She nodded, tapped her pencil eraser against the clipboard, and jotted something down. "Why not?" _

_He didn't speak. _

_She waited. She could wait a long time if she had to. _

_But so could he. _


End file.
